Managing marine parks
Objectives
Each Queensland marine park has unique features that require specific management. However, some management objectives are common to all marine parks. The most important ones are:
- to protect and preserve plants and wildlife, ecosystems and features of special scientific, archaeological or cultural importance;
- to encourage natural history appreciation and awareness; and
- to ensure the marine park remains a diverse, resilient and productive ecological system while allowing user groups to access its resources.
Management
Each State marine park has a zoning plan which identifies the different zones within a marine park and indicates the types of activities that can occur in each zone. Designated areas can also form part of a zoning plan and allow for special management at specific locations.
Traditional custodians and user groups are involved in developing or altering zoning plans.
Marine management plans may also be developed to provide a planning framework and include guidelines on how an area will be managed. They set out the considerations, outcomes and strategies that form the basis for day-to-day management decisions. Some very popular reefs and islands have detailed management plans designed to alleviate problems at particular locations.
Rangers
Marine park rangers are the public face of day-to-day management of the marine park. They are uniformed and qualified officers employed by the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service, usually responsible for a designated geographical area (a district). Rangers need a broad range of skills to carry out their diverse responsibilities. They may also call on specialists to help carry out particular tasks.
Rangers participate in resource monitoring and assessment, public contact, interpretation, education, surveillance patrols and enforcement. They also help maintain infrastructure, plant and equipment.
Rangers also spend time ensuring cultural values of sea country are maintained. Working together with traditional owners, they help identify and protect sacred and special sites, and manage cultural resources.
Indigenous community rangers are also vital managers of marine parks. A community ranger is an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander Ranger who works for his or her community council or corporation. In Queensland, more than 100 qualified community rangers work with their communities to protect their land and sea country.
Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service staff in co-operation with many of these rangers work together to meet common goals in protecting their sea and coastal areas. Community rangers maintain marine resources at sustainable levels, look after cultural sites, help enforce marine park regulations in their areas, and undertake tourism management, coastal stabilisation and feral species management tasks. They also develop economic enterprises (i.e. fishing, tourism, walking track/boardwalk construction and cultural centres) to aid self-determination. The Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service assists in this work through providing financial assistance and training to rangers and community councils, and through its participation in collaborative projects in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and State marine park areas.
Community rangers are the crucial contact between the various land councils, their local community councils, elders, and tribal corporations, and government departments and agencies such as ATSIC, TAFE, DNRW and the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service. Their unique skills and traditional knowledge means that they play an important role in ensuring the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service and traditional owners can work together to manage and sustain the ecological and cultural values of Queensland's sea country.
Getting involved
You can become involved in marine parks by:
- participating in public submissions on proposed new parks or changes to existing ones;
- following all the regulations and obeying signs or advice given by marine park officers;
- learning as much as you can about marine parks to help you understand the importance of managing these marine environments for preservation now and forever; and
- reporting any incidents or alleged offences by completing the incident and complaint form.
Last updated: 17 October 2007